Fronds With Benefits
by Embers Diminish
Summary: A young Heiress gets desperate when trying to feed her lusus, and a troll boy with a large gun may be able to help with that. Young!Feferi and Eridan, not shipping.


**A/N: I didn't add non-verbal quirks. Like Eridan's ww and vv thing affects how he speaks, so that's in there, as well as the fish puns, but Feferi's -E and )( thing didn't.**

A young troll girl patted her lusus comfortingly as it gave a whispered glub.

"Cod, no. Please don't do that, okay?" she whispered back, feeling her lusus' desperation as it whispered about food. "My trident can't catch you everything you want."

The lusus glubbed hungrily.

"All the cuttlefish on Alternia can't even start satisfying your cravings!"

Another glub.

"Until I find you somefin, you'll just have to make do."

Glub.

"Fin, you won, I'll hurry. Just don't start krilling everyone!"

The troll swam away from her lusus' home. Gosh, being an Heiress was such hard work, and that was just taking care of her lusus, called by Gl'bygolyb or in hushed tones, Speaker of the Vast Glub. The troll knew all too well what that meant, having been informed that if the large sea monster was not fed, trolls would start dying. It would begin with the lower castes and move up, and it was up to the young Heiress to make sure that didn't happen.

She returned to her own hive, a vast underwater palace not far from her lusus' home, with a size unmatched by any on Alternia. She swam through the doors and had to rush to find supplies as it dawned on her how little she had actually been feeding Gl'bygolyb and how hungry the lusus must be now.

The troll fated with caring for this large and dangerous lusus was none other than Feferi Peixes, the only troll on Alternia with the high, Tyrian purple blood, and the Heiress Apparent at 5 sweeps old. She had fluffy black hair partway down her back, reined in by a golden tiara, and a skintight black suit, her symbol over her stomach.

Feferi gathered her things and immediately headed out one of the entrances in the series of caves under her hive. She then swam upwards, towards the fish that were no doubt lurking close to the surface. However, as Feferi began to see the shimmering of the surface coming closer, she was engulfed by a large shadow, darkening the area around her to almost pitch-black. The fish she could see in the distance were fleeing to somewhere with more light, and she knew something was falling. Something big.

Feferi quickly swam out of the way was the large object fell past her, and in the light of the sun shining through the water, she could see the large object was a whale. The whale was white, the color of a lusus. Wait, it _was _a lusus!

She dove down after it, kicking furiously to catch up, and became aware of another figure doing the same. She didn't bother to see whether it was fish or troll, but instead swam faster to meet the falling lusus. When at last it landed, Feferi touched down gracefully and began to inspect the damages. At the sight of the large purple hole in its side, she concluded that it was most definitely dead. She looked up and found a young troll, roughly as old as she was, standing atop the whale's body triumphantly. In his hands was a blue gun slightly taller than him. He wore a thick sweater with a large purple wave symbol and blue and black striped pants, as well as a long purple cape that sagged on his shoulders and probably looked more impressive on land.

He swam down to inspect the wound in the lusus' side, and then looked at his gun in satisfaction. "Hah, Mindfang wwasn't the only one wwith a good taste in wweapons!"

Feferi gasped. "That was you?"

"Sure wwas!"

"You KRILLED someone's lusus?"

"Yes," he answered simply.

Feferi gasped. This little wriggler's gun killed a lusus and he didn't see a thing wrong with it! And a lusus this large? Why, such a big animal could feed Gl'bygolyb for a week, no complai- Wait.

Feferi's expression turned sweet. "I don't think I've seen you around before. What's your name?"

"Ampora. Eridan Ampora!"

"COOL gun you have there!"

"Ahab's Crosshairs!" he introduced it proudly. "Once belonged to my ancestor, Orphaner Dualscar!"

"Looks powerful," Feferi observed.

"Obvviously. Killed that one easily," Eridan replied, gesturing to the dead whale lusus. "An wwhat's your name?"

"Feferi Peixes!"

"Always good to meet a seadwweller. Wwell, anyone wwho isn't a landdwweller..."

Lovely. A Hemospectrum hugger. Feferi was all for being the Heiress and all sometimes, but some trolls could get really crabby about it... Oh, well, it didn't matter anymore. Eridan couldn't be that bad, and his Ahab's Cross-stitch or whatever it was called could be pretty useful in the long run.

"Hehe, I guess..." she replied, and there was an awkward moment of silence.

"...Wwell, I should be goin," Eridan said after another few seconds.

"No, wait! Stay and talk another moment!" Feferi insisted. "Tell me...what you're going to do with this whale lusus!"

"Leavve it here?"

"GREAT! Er, I was wondering if I could have it. My lusus can get reely hungry, and food this big will keep things from getting too bad."

Eridan shrugged. "I'm not complainin."

"YAY," Feferi exclaimed, looking around her for a topic to keep the conversation going. "So...you like that gun?"

"Wwhat's it to you?"

"You said it belonged to someone."

"Orphaner Dualscar," he explained. "My ancestor."

"You believe in the ancestors?"

"You don't?"

"OH, I do..." Feferi sighed.

"Do you knoww wwho yours wwas?"

Feferi sighed. "Is..."

"Is?" Eridan repeated confusedly, and then he saw the sign on her clothing. "Oh!"

Feferi nodded sadly, and as if a switch had flipped, Eridan became friendlier. "Wwell, I wwould like you to knoww that I like your fish puns."

"Thanks!"

Eridan then cast a look behind him and gritted his teeth, muttering a string of curses under his breath, then spoke to Feferi. "Fef, it wwas nice meetin you, but my fuckin lusus is intent on havvin his owwn plans..."

"It was REELY nice meeting you too," Feferi agreed. "Maybe I'll sea you around?"

"Or..." Eridan mused. "Do you havve Trollian?"

Feferi had recently figured out how to install the program, a prospect that had been troubling her for weeks without a solution until a benevolent blue blood had told her how to install it. She was eager to try it out, and why not while talking to Eridan as well.

"YEAH! I'm cuttlefishCuller. You?"

Eridan grinned slightly. "CaligulasAquarium. I'll be su- _shore _to add you."

With that, Eridan turned and swam off. Feferi turned to the dead lusus and stared at it, wondering how to move it, and then she remembered: she had recently obtained a new Fetch Modus, which allowed her to captchalog large items like the lusus. She captchalogged the large whale and swam off.

She reached her lusus' cave within a few minutes. She looked wistfully in the direction of her hive, hoping to get on Trollian soon and talk to her new frond.

Upon her entrance, the lusus' whisper was bordering on being loud enough to kill a troll of lower blood. It whispered longingly of food, so Feferi swam a safe distance away before pulling the whale lusus out of her sylladex. As Gl'bygolyb began to devour the whale, Feferi thought it best to leave her lusus to it and get on Trollian.

Over the rest of that sweet, Feferi and Eridan became moirails, originally based on her need to feed Gl'bygolyb and later on the friendship they had. Eridan introduced her to his friends, some other trolls and all of them land trolls. One of them, a jade blood named Kanaya, even fashioned a skirt for Feferi, light blue and green, that made a pretty fishtail when she swam around. She grew close to Eridan, though not too close, and after a while, she began to wonder if there was something he was hiding. And shore, he wasn't the perfect moirail, with his genocidal urges and snobbiness and... Oh, it was no problem, reely. She kept him from krilling everyone.

Being an Heiress is hard work, she told herself, but she'd survive and make the most of it. They would make it through.


End file.
